Ed Note: None have spotted the April Fool’s Day item in yesterday’s News Review, so lovingly crafted by our News Correspondent! Did you really think that the ‘annual washing of the lions in Trafalgar Square’ was an event which you only read about because ‘covid precautions’ would be taken? April Fools, LOL!
RUSSIAN TROOP MOVEMENTS CAUSE CONCERN
The Express reports that Vladamir Putin has sent huge numbers of tanks to the Ukrainian border in an awesome display of military might amid reports of missiles also deployed. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba today confirmed he had spoken to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), of which Britain is a member, to alert them about Russia’s “systemic aggravation”. Meanwhile, Canada, which has 200 troops stationed in Ukraine, is concerned about a Russian buildup of forces near the war-torn east of the country and is watching the crisis closely, a senior source directly familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
TENSION RISING IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
The Express reports that tensions in the South China Sea region have escalated after the Philippines accused China of deploying hundreds of vessels manned by militias into the highly contested region. According to reports, hundreds of Chinese vessels manned by militias in the disputed area have spread inside the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone in Whitsun Reef. Manila has described the move as “swarming and threatening”. Beijing has denied the boats were manned by militia and said the vessels were sheltering from rough seas. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington stands by its ally amid growing tensions with Beijing and China’s maritime presence at Whitsun Reef. The South China Sea is a highly contested region and faces claims from China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Diplomatic relations between the nations are already extremely strained.
NOW BORIS WANTS JAB PASS APP
The Daily Mail reports that trials of vaccine passports could begin as soon as next month. Theatres and stadiums are being lined up to pilot the controversial scheme under plans discussed by ministers. The passports could also be used eventually in pubs, restaurants, nightclubs and cinemas. Pilot schemes will begin after work is completed on an updated version of the NHS Covid app which will let users prove they have been vaccinated. The plan is a sign Boris Johnson will give vaccine passports the go-ahead on Monday, when he is due to report the interim results of a study led by Michael Gove. But their introduction is certain to trigger a huge political row. Last night 72 MPs – including libertarian Tories and senior Labour figures – issued a joint statement branding vaccine passports ‘divisive and discriminatory’ and vowing to oppose them. This threatens a major headache for the Prime Minister if he needs legislation to bring the scheme in. The Mail can also reveal that Mr Johnson’s ‘roadmap’ for lifting almost all restrictions by June 21 could now be dependent on a functioning vaccine passport programme.
OVER 50’s URGED TO GET THEIR JAB BOOKED
The SUN reports that millions of people have been urged to book their Covid jab without delay by NHS chiefs. They said protection from the virus as some lockdown restrictions are eased is crucial. Anyone who is eligible – in the top nine priority groups – and has not yet had their Covid jab, should do so. It includes anyone over the age of 50, people with certain medical conditions regardless of age, those who live with a vulnerable adult and NHS and social care workers, including in hospitals and care homes. Some 15 percent of people aged between 50 and 54 are yet to get their vaccine. And around 10 percent of all residents in England over 70 years are yet to get a dose, according to Office for National Statistics figures.
MANAGE COVID LIKE FLU SAYS WHITTY
The Telegraph reports that Lockdowns are unlikely to be needed again as Britain learns to treat coronavirus like flu, Prof Chris Whitty has said.The chief medical officer said that up to 25,000 people die in a bad flu year without anyone noticing and that accepting some Covid deaths would be the price of keeping schools and business open and allowing people to live a “whole life”. Prof Whitty said it was important to bring Covid deaths as low as possible, but warned that society would not tolerate being locked down to prevent similar numbers of deaths to those from flu.
REPORT HAS GIVEN GREEN LIGHT TO RACISM
The Mirror reports that the mother of Stephen Lawrence, Baroness Doreen Lawrence who was murdered by racists in 1993, said the report had pushed the fight against racism back 20 years and has also said Number 10’s race report has given the green light to racists. It comes after the report, published yesterday, was accused of being insulting and divisive by claiming that the UK is no longer institutionally racist. The review led by Dr Tony Sewell – who criticised flimsy evidence or institutional racism 11 years ago – concluded the UK is no longer a country where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities.
TOP BLACK ADVISER QUITS
The Times reports that Boris Johnson’s most senior black adviser has quit amid the fallout from the government’s race review. Samuel Kasumu, an entrepreneur who has been advising Johnson on race issues since he became prime minister in 2019, told his colleagues that he had decided to leave in May on Tuesday morning, shortly before the report was published. The timing of his announcement will throw further scrutiny on the report produced by the independent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which was formed last July after the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. The review was criticised by campaigners for arguing that Britain was not an institutionally racist country.
WALKOUT AT PIMLICO SCHOOL RULES UNREMARKABLE
The Times reports that a government adviser on classroom discipline appeared to criticise pupils after an anti-racism protest about uniform rules at their school. Two Conservative MPs have also spoken out against the walkout at Pimlico Academy in central London yesterday, where pupils were seen holding Black Lives Matter banners and chanting ‘’we want change during a demonstration outside. Pupils claimed that the uniform code was discriminatory because it in effect banned afro hairstyles that “block the views of others” and colourful hijabs.Tom Bennett, who has advised the Department for Education on how to tackle unruly behaviour in schools and leads a team of advisers working for the department’s behaviour hubs, said today that the rules were utterly unremarkable.
SPANISH TOURIST INDUSTRY PUTS HOPES ON SUMMER
From the Guardian: The Spanish tourist industry has reacted with dismay to the government’s decree that face masks must be worn in all outdoor spaces, including beaches and swimming pools, even when it is possible to maintain social distancing. ‘We’re going through hell with thousands of jobs and businesses threatened and now they want to turn the beaches into open-air field hospitals’,José Luis Zoreda, vice-president of Exceltur, the umbrella organisation that represents Spain’s tourism industry, told El País newspaper. Industry representatives complain that they were not consulted over the decision, which was announced in an official state bulletin on Tuesday.
MET PC CONVICTED UNDER TERRORISM LAWS
The Telegraph reports that a young neo-Nazi has become the first police officer to be convicted under terror laws as the force admitted that its vetting system “will never be completely perfect”. Pc Benjamin Hannam was a member of the extreme right wing group National Action, which was banned in 2016 for its white supremacist ideology, and is believed to be the first serving British police officer to be found guilty of terrorism offences. The 22-year-old, who joined the Met Police in 2018, was arrested in 2019 at his home in north London where police seized far-right material including Benito Mussolini’s book, The Doctrine on Fascism, posters of German Nazi soldiers, and the manifesto written by the Norweigan terrorist Anders Breivik. Police also found a guide on how to use knives and weapons in combat, alongside an image with the caption ‘make genocide great again’ on a USB stick. Mr Hannam was found guilty of being a member of a proscribed organisation on Thursday, and guilty of fraud for lying about his far-right background on his application form to the Met Police.
BREXIT FORCES DOG FOOD COMPANY RELOCATION TO FRANCE
The Guardian reports that the founder of a Scottish dog food business has told how Brexit forced him to move to France after his exports to the EU were halted because of the new trade barriers in place since 1 January. After 10 weeks of daily calls and emails to government representatives, who he said were absolutely terrible, Antoon Murphy said he was left with no other option than to relocate or face losing the business. The trade deal they agreed at Christmas is very close to as good as no deal, he said. He set up Antos dog chew company in Ayrshire in 2005 and has grown it into a business with 19 staff and a turnover of more than £8m. About 60% of his sales were dog chews made from deer antlers, a sustainable and safer alternative to the bones popular in the UK and across the EU.
AND FINALLY
From the Daily Mail: A war memorial has been vandalised after thousands of revellers descended on a park to enjoy the hottest day of the year so far as lockdown restrictions eased. Pensioner Tony Foulds, 83, who has tended the memorial for seven decades, made a desperate plea for vandals to stay away from the monument in Endcliffe Park, Sheffield, after it was targeted on Tuesday. US flags were torn down from the memorial which is dedicated to ten American soldiers who died when the B-17 Flying Fortress, known as Mi Amigo, crashed in the park on February 22 1944.
So when do the lions get washed?
Is it every 10 years on Census day?
I would have thought October 21st would have been more appropriate Trafalgar Day
Actually, Roger – they never get washed! This April Fool’s Day joke goes back a long time, and was first made in the middle of the 19th century. It must have been very successful for it to be ‘resurrected’ again and again, over the decades.
Mind you – it would actually be a very good idea to have an annual ‘Lions Wash Day’, making our Peacocks do the job, preferably when it’s cold, raining and generally miserable!
The opposition is worserer!
Or do you want someone ‘independent’ to stalk you like CH stalks TGS?
I ‘d like to know exactly what act (of violence?) this PC has done to warrant his arrest? Apart from having a few books of course.
He probably never committed any act of violence at all. Just being a member of a proscribed organisation was enough and then lying about it on his application form, Whatever you think of this, there has to be standards whether it be academic, physical or anything else, and he quite obviously didn’t meet those standards. For me what is more of concern is how he was able to hoodwink the recruitment and the vetting department before being offered an appointment. It just would not have occurred in my day, and just goes to prove how far standards have slipped in the police service, and how incompetent the standard of police management is these days. That is the most telling aspect of this sad and sordid story.
True Colin, but it’s not easy to imagine the Met Police raiding the home of one of their own and seizing left wing literature. The same Met Police who now kneel to BLM, whose website supports defunding of the police, and abolition of capitalism & the family unit.
Where can we find the list of proscibed organisations?
Does it include Thatcher PM, Brown PM, Bliar PM?
I see also that twitterbook has put President Trump into the memory bucket.
Who decides, and under what criterion?
Just asking.
When I did some teaching in the 1980s one of the teachers was an active can rattler for the IRA and whilst all the staff knew this he was never ever challenged on this issue by the princple or ostracised by other teachers and the union. If he had been in the National Front he would have been bounced out immediately with the full support of the unions. I threw my union card in after that and never joined a union ever again.
All the organisation’s and individuals and ideologies mentioned Fascism, Mussolini, Nazism etc are all far left. The Left have through propaganda over many decades projected this onto the Right.
Possessing The Doctrine of Fascism by Mussolini? This along with Mein Kampft is available freely on Amazon, has Jeff Bezos been arrested for distributing subsersive material?
Have a listen to this video on Twitter. It talks about the Biden disaster at the US Southern border. The only reason that Biden did the things that he did is because the Democrats do not want there to be a border, there is no other explanation.
The significance for us in Britain is that Johnson, Patel et al are doing exactly the same thing, the reality is that they do not want a border separating Britain from Europe or even Africa. The video is three minutes long.
Senator James Lankford
https://twitter.com/i/status/1377658737528279040
BuyDung, let ’em all in.
Pretty Guptell, escort the dingies in – border force boat are needed.
MANAGE COVID LIKE FLU SAYS WHITTY
Professor Whitty says that 25,000 people die in a bad flu year (in the UK) without anybody noticing. But how do we really know that as many as 25,000 have died since March last year of Covid-19 in the UK?
The official ONS figure so far is 126,000 Covid deaths. But that figure includes deaths “from” & “with” Covid-19. Deaths “with” Covid are deaths within 60 days of a positive Covid test result. Deaths “from” Covid are where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate. But that includes mention of Covid as a “contributory” cause.
So even deaths “from” Covid-19 may not have really been from Covid-19. If the deceased didn’t die from lung congestion then they didn’t die from Covid. But the statistics don’t tell us how many of those 126,000 died from lung congestion. We have no way of knowing how many people in the UK have really died from Covid-19.
Oh. That has made me sad. I used to walk my first ever border collie in Endcliffe Park Sheffield.
The Guardian reports – Antoon Murphy hardly sounds like a Scottish name!
How can deer antlers be safer to chew on than bones? Raw knuckle bones for example.
I’m left with a load of tripe sticks since my dog died.
Antoon Murphy? Itua Boubouwebou as the ‘pub landlord’ would say – good Btitish name. Plays for which British Premier Football Club?
Deer antlers were used in the first ploughs, as I am sure you know.
As such doggies enjoy chewing them, and they are long lasting! I have a ‘secret supply’ -be nice to me!
So dont knock ’em till you’re tried ’em. Well not you personally . . .
Hi Biscotte. I’m almost getting to like you. You are quite right, deer antlers were used as ploughs in the dim and distant past.
Trouble I’m having now, I do not understand the languages you use – like Itua Boubouwebou for instance.
It really interfere’s with whether I agree with you or not.
Can you give translations in future please.
Presumably Whitless has seen the light about treating covid like flu, because the vaccine passports ensure the dictatorship is now set in stone.
O.K., I.D., You win.
I just thought never heard of that before but typical of B.J. to say something that stupid.
John Redwood played an even better one. Have a look. I think the underlying message is that the Civil Service are still working to keep us tied to the EU. How else can anything be done?
How I WISH HE would work to get this awful lot out.